This week, I am so excited to share with you an interview with our friend and author, Brian Herberger.His historical fiction novel Miss E. was recently named a Notable Indie Title of 2016 by Shelf Unbound. As an educator, Brian truly understands the craft of writing. He talked with me about his life as a writer and ideas for bringing writing into all classrooms.

BubbleUp Classroom is also thrilled about our first giveaway! We have TWO copies of Miss E. that Brian will personalize and sign for our winners. Please be sure you enter our contest at the end of this post!

​​This week, I ran across an interesting perspective on using graphic organizers for writing, a cool project to encourage student mural creation, advice on differentiating whole group instruction, pointers on developing growth mindset, and a great book list.

Plus, there are a few extra resources in today's Take5 -- a great web site, an audio recording tool, and some posters you can use in your classroom or library. Enjoy!

For those of you who follow our blog regularly (thank you by the way), you know that in September my classroom went flexible. I can't take credit for the idea. My co-teacher, Hannah was dying to try it and so when my assistant principal asked if we would be interested in piloting a flexible seating classroom the answer was yes. Hannah and I did a lot of reading and research, she scoured the internet for deals and then one day we headed to IKEA.

​I don't follow New Year's resolutions. I always make them. They usually involve un-original ideas like eating healthy or working out and then about three days in I am scarfing down chocolate left around my school (no thanks to those who feel it is their duty to leave chocolate in cute little bowls near Gretchen's desk) and skipping my workout.​